


Watch Me

by DarylDixonGrimes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Exhibitionism, Exhibitionist!Daryl, M/M, Masturbation, Voyeur!Rick, Voyeurism, bottom!daryl, top!rick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:22:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"With both his skin and blood vibrating with excited energy, Daryl sank down into the plush accent chair that had been in the house since before he started using it as a hideaway. Watching himself in the tiny screen, he licked his lips and reached down to work on the button of his pants, raising his body to slide them a short distance down his hips."</p><p>Or the one where Daryl "borrows" Deanna's video camera to satisfy his needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Record Me

There was a time when breaking into the darkened room that used to be Deanna's office might have felt like desecrating someone's grave. But the whole world had been a grave for quite some time, and Daryl had long since gotten past any qualms he had once held when it came to looting tombs.  
  
A small voice in the back of his head told him that he could have just _asked_ Spencer to give him the thing he searched for there in the dark, treading around the room with all the stealth he had learned from a life spent in the woods. But asking would have meant questions that Daryl wasn't quite prepared to answer, and other than the well-practiced “I tripped,” and “no, we ain't got a camp,” he was a lot better at shutting his mouth and looking broody than he was at actually making up a solid lie.  
  
And asking Spencer to borrow Deanna's video camera would have required a damn solid lie. And it would've meant that he would have to follow through on whatever lie he told just in case Spencer asked about it later. That was just too much goddamn effort, especially since it was two in the damn morning and Spencer was currently somewhere sleeping with his head cradled on Rosita's chest.  
  
“There you are, you son of a bitch,” he said, pulling the camera and the tripod out of a dusty box in the corner. He briefly considered setting it up there and doing what he intended to, but he was practical enough to know that would require turning on a light, and that turning on a light in the middle of the night in a house no one was supposed to be in might mean someone coming to investigate. So instead he put the equipment in his pack and slipped out the back door, making his way toward the unoccupied house he already had a reputation for hanging out in. No one would question a light there.  
  
He was already hard before he even got to the front door, and he was aching by the time he tucked himself away in the upstairs bedroom, after locking every door between him and the outside word and making sure the curtains were well-shut. For some ridiculous reason, even though he knew he was alone, he still looked around furtively before he opened the backpack to take everything out. It wasn't lost on him that this was even more silly because the precise reason he had borrowed the camera to begin with was because he got off on the idea of being watched.  
  
He hadn't gotten to play with that particular fetish in a long time. Necessity demanded that the person who watched him be a complete stranger, more something he needed to keep from panicking after the thing was done than something his dick actually cared about in the moment, but still. The point was that there weren't a hell of a lot of complete strangers to be found when you either killed people or became so close to them that you practically spent all your time breathing up each others' asses.  
  
It was a part of him that probably would've stayed buried for a long time, maybe even until the day he died, if someone hadn't mentioned to the new guy Tara and Sasha found on the road that he was lucky he only got the old three questions instead of the uncomfortable video interview.  
  
For some reason, Daryl's mind had immediately started thinking about the video camera tucked away somewhere in the Monroe house, flashing between it and the rare nights without Merle when he had situated his lower body in front of a shitty stolen laptop and grainy dollar store Web cam for whomever wanted to see.  
  
He nearly dropped Deanna's camera twice before getting it onto the tripod, his hands shaking in anticipation, and even though he knew no one would ever see what he recorded, the potential of someone finding it and watching it was still enough to make his heartbeat quicken. It took a moment to fiddle with the buttons and figure out how the hell to turn the damn thing on, but he got there, glad that it still had a decent amount of battery left since he hadn't even considered looking for a charger.

He turned the view screen around so he could see it from the front and walked back and forth between the camera and where he planned to do the deed, making adjustments to get both himself and his crotch in the frame. One more minor tip of the camera, and he had it perfect.  
  
With both his skin and blood vibrating with excited energy, Daryl sank down into the plush accent chair that had been in the house since before he started using it as a hideaway. Watching himself in the tiny screen, he licked his lips and reached down to work on the button of his pants, raising his body to slide them a short distance down his hips, just far enough that he could pull his cock free from the folds of the fabric.  
  
He gave the view screen one more look, finding himself framed perfectly with his erection in his fist, and then he closed his eyes and let fantasy and the idea of someone watching the video later take over.  
  
His thoughts immediately landed on Rick. Hell, they always did when he touched himself. His mind conjured up an image of Rick's face, his waves soft and curling at his neck, his blue eyes fierce with determination. That alone was enough to make Daryl lick his palm and start stroking.  
  
He imagined Rick on top of him next, devouring his skin with succulent kisses while he wrote his desire all over Daryl's flesh.  
  
“Rick,” Daryl sighed softly, working over his own flesh even while he imagined Rick's hands rubbing up and down his thighs.  
  
“C'mon Rick. Need you,” Daryl said, squeezing his length while the Rick in his head slowly undid his belt, staring at Daryl with a mix of lust and amusement while he purposely took his sweet time unfastening his jeans, slipping them all the way off to reveal his holy legs in all their bowed-out glory.  
  
“Fuckin want you.” Daryl slid down lower in the chair, using the leverage to fuck into his fist while Rick assured him he wanted him too before burying his face in the crack of Daryl's ass, his beard scratching at Daryl's skin while he lapped deliciously at his hungry hole.  
  
“Fuck, Rick,” Daryl moaned. He rolled his body up into the tunnel of his palm, all the while his brain imagined two things—Rick tonguing and fingering his ass. And Rick being the one watching him rhythmically run his hand up and down his hardened length.  
  
Daryl couldn't decide which thing turned him on more. On the one hand, he could almost feel Rick's thick fingers stretching him open. On the other, he could also easily imagine the dark, hungry look in Rick's eyes while he sat there and observed Daryl jerking off just for him.  
  
The Rick with his fingers in Daryl's ass asked him how much he wanted him. The other Rick looked on with interest.   
  
“So damn much.”  
  
Not good enough. Fingers pulled out of him, leaving him empty and wanting, and Daryl whimpered both there and in reality. Rick making him tell him what he wanted was one of his other biggest fantasies, and if he wanted to be filled again, he would have to do a lot better.  
  
“Want you so damn much, Rick,” he half-moaned, the slick rubbing sounds of him stroking himself harder filling the room in the real world. “Wanted you since I first saw you in those damn dad jeans back at the quarry.”

Fingers again, but not enough of them. A teasing encouragement to keep talking. Daryl reached down to fondle his balls. The Rick watching him raised his eyebrow and shifted in his seat.    
  
“I'd feed my left nut to a walker to feel you buried in my damn ass.” Daryl went back to rubbing, letting another moaned “Rick” fall from his lips. “Want you to fuck me. Want you to damn near destroy me.”  
  
Fingers gone. Rick lowered himself onto him, his hair sweaty and loose while he pushed into Daryl's willing body.  
  
Muscles tensed in either world while Daryl skipped ahead to the part where Rick fucked him with fervor, holding Daryl's wrists above his head and claiming him with thrust after thrust.  
  
“Gonna cum,” Daryl groaned. Both the Rick fucking him and the Rick watching him commanded him to do it with authoritative rough growls.  
  
On their order, Daryl let his head roll against the back of the chair, moans of “Rick” and “fuck” spilling out of his lips while warm cum spurted from his cock into the open palm of his other hand. The imaginary Ricks disappeared with the last spasm of his release, and he watched himself lick his hand clean in the tiny view screen of the camera, sucking every single drop of orgasm off his fingers. One more last little show for no one.  
  
When it was over, he spent a few more moments in the chair, giving himself time to come down from satisfying high before he walked over and shut everything off. He debated with himself about whether or not he should go ahead and erase the footage and return the camera before anyone noticed it was missing. But he just couldn't do it, not yet.   
  
There had been enough dust in Deanna's office to keep him from thinking anyone even went in there anymore, and Spencer was heading out on a run with Rosita and Tara in the morning. Besides, he was too boneless and spent to feel much like sneaking around anyhow.  
  
There was also maybe a small part of him that fully intended to get another good orgasm out of the damn thing too before he made himself let it go. Either way, he left it where it was and turned out the lights, taking one last glance at the skeleton of the tripod in the dark before he shut the door headed back home to crawl into bed.  
  
He fell asleep later feeling damn near blissful, dreaming away the night with Rick in a house of mirrors. 


	2. Excite Me

Rick had an ungodly headache, and it was barely ten a.m. Being the leader of a group in the apocalypse had never been easy, but some days were worse than others, and while things weren't “getting locked in a train car by cannibals who very much intend to eat you” bad, they were still pretty up there.  
  
Aaron and Sasha had come back from their run empty-handed, which meant Alexandria had about two days to come up with more food before shit started getting tense. Carl had been complaining about his chores around the house and the steadily growing (but not grown enough to be useful in solving the first problem) farm. And on top of that and all the other things he had to deal with day-to-day, Judith was cutting a tooth, which meant she had kept him up all night.   
  
Rick was understandably tired. He was tired, and he needed someone to find food and everything imaginable for helping a teething baby. Rings. Baby Orajel. More children's Tylenol. He needed to bring in the proverbial big guns.   
  
He needed Daryl.   
  
The others weren't bad runners by any means, but there were just things that set Daryl apart. The biggest one of those things, and the thing Rick needed most at the moment, was that the hunter had a certain determination to never come back empty-handed. If he couldn't find food, he'd find and kill _something_ on the way home. If he couldn't find the right medicine, he'd come back home with a whole medicine cabinet worth of everything else in the hopes that something could still be used. There was no guarantee that he would find what both the community and Judith needed, but there was a way better chance of him coming back with something useful than nothing at all.   
  
“Aaron,” Rick said, crossing to the other side of the street to meet him. “You seen Daryl?”   
  
Other than home and a little hideaway in an abandoned house, Daryl still spent the most time at Aaron and Eric's. There was a pretty good chance of finding him there in their garage on any given day.   
  
“I haven't. Not since he opened the gates for us this morning, but I was asleep most of the day.”   
  
“Mm,” Rick nodded, already starting to walk off. “Well, if you do, tell him I'm looking for him.”   
  
“Absolutely,” Aaron said. “Hey Rick...”   
  
The leader stopped and turned back around.   
  
“Tara, Rosita, and Spencer. They'll find something. We'll be fine.”   
  
“Yeah, I know,” Rick said. He didn't know at all, but if he found Daryl and hedged their bets a little more like he intended, then it was certainly more likely.   
  
“Well, if I see him...”  
  
“Yeah, thank you,” Rick said, and then he headed back on his way, walking down the street toward the empty place everyone knew pretty much belonged to Daryl, at least until someone else showed up who needed it more.   
  
He knocked on the front door twice before twisting the knob and stepping inside.   
  
“Daryl,” Rick called, first in the front entry and then at the bottom of the stairs. When he got no answer, he was fairly sure that meant Daryl was nowhere in the house. But headphones had become a thing again inside of the walls, and Rick was probably the only person alive who knew that every now and then, the hunter liked to throw on a pair and listen to Skynyrd at dangerously high levels. After Rick accidentally found out his guilty pleasure, Daryl had sworn up and down that he would shoot a bolt from his bow directly up Rick's ass if he ever told anyone.   
  
“Daryl,” Rick said again, moving room to room in the house. The fact that his gun was still in its holster was the only difference between him clearing a place of walkers and him clearing this one of any wayward Daryls.   
  
The last room he checked on the lower level was the only one with its door shut. Rick knocked, even though he was nearly certain he was alone. Daryl never listened to more than one or two songs. Having his guard down any longer than that wasn't an option for him even inside of Alexandria.   
  
“Daryl, you in here?” Rick pushed open the door slowly, both for his own safety—sudden movements were never a good idea—and for the sake of the other man's privacy.   
  
But the room was empty and contained nothing but furniture and a camera on a tripod. Rick tilted his head and walked over to it. That was a weird thing to just have lying around. It was even weirder that no one in the town had snatched it up in the time that they'd all been there, and even weirder still that Daryl hadn't.   
  
It had taken Rick a while to realize Daryl showed his affection in material things. The Cherokee rose he'd given Carol. The food he had shared in the beginning before he had any sort of obligation to. The extras he got on runs that were more luxuries than necessities—perfume, bubble bath, the little stuffed bear he'd given Judith. The camera seemed like a natural thing for him to give to Rick, not that Rick coveted it or _expected_ it, but he could just see the man finding it and handing it over so he could record some of Judith's early years. It seemed almost out of character for him not to. At the very least, it seemed like a weird thing to just leave there in its current position.   
  
Rick walked around to the other side of it, examining it more. That's when he saw the little address label stuck to the side, a glossy white tag that read "Reginald and Deanna Monroe," along with an address that must have been theirs before Alexandria.   
  
Well that raised even more damn questions.   
  
Why the hell had Daryl stolen Deanna's video camera? And what the hell had he set it up to record exactly?   
  
Rick took a quick look around, double checking to make sure he was alone, and then he flipped the view finder open and turned the thing on. The dates on the files were all fucked up, but the most recent one started with a clear image of Daryl sitting in the chair across from the thing. Rick selected it and hit play.   
  
The first minute or so were just Daryl walking back and forth to the camera. He seemed to be focused on getting himself positioned perfectly in the shot, and Rick had to wonder what exactly it was he was doing. Was he about to make some kind of confession? Shit, was Daryl gone again? Was this him saying good-bye, knowing that Rick would find it?   
  
Rick's heart gave a painful lurch at that thought. He quickly shook it away right around the time that Daryl seemed to finally settle into the chair for whatever it was he intended to do. He kind of hoped it was something insanely embarrassing that he could tease him about forever. Like karaoke or a pretend audition for a trashy reality show. Or a video diary.  
  
Rick watched intently while Daryl started unbuckling his pants. Oh shit. Unconsciously licking his lips, the leader tilted the viewfinder to a better angle and leaned in closer, watching the hunter slide his pants down on his hips, revealing an erection that Rick could tell even in the tiny screen was nothing to be trifled with.   
  
“Jesus Christ, Daryl,” he whispered, getting a better grasp for the size of the thing after Daryl licked his palm and wrapped his hand around it. Rick wasn't entirely oblivious to the fact that he was starting to have a bit of a situation in his own pants.   
  
The hunter stroked himself deliciously within the tiny frame of the camera screen, and Rick wished fervently that he could grab the whole set up and cart if off somewhere where he could watch it properly, somewhere with a huge screen on which he could easily see every little ridge and vein and drip of precum.   
  
With Daryl's first quiet moan, a small voice snapped him back to reality. He shouldn't be watching this. This wasn't just Daryl listening to southern rock like some backwoods Georgia cliché. This was Daryl _masturbating_ , and he had most likely never intended for anyone to see it.   
  
With a pang of regret, Rick inched his thumb toward the power button. And he very nearly got around to doing the right damn thing like an upstanding moral individual. Nearly being the operative word.   
  
“Rick,” Daryl sighed softly, and the leader froze in place. He blinked his eyes a few times, looking on while Daryl continued touching himself.   
  
There was no way in hell that's what Daryl just said. There was no way in hell that after years of fantasizing about kissing the other man until neither of them could breathe, about bending him over every available surface and claiming him again and again, about living out the rest of whatever days they had hand in hand… There was no goddamn way.   
  
He had imagined Daryl saying it. That was all.   
  
“C'mon Rick. Need you.”   
  
Rick made a little noise somewhere in the back of his throat even while he shook his head in disbelief. That same small voice came back a second later to remind him that he still shouldn't be watching it, and that if anything, Daryl would probably be even more mortified to find out he was.   
  
But how the actual fucking shit was he supposed to stop now?   
  
“Fuckin want you,” Daryl said quietly, almost whining it more than anything else. Rick greedily pulled the camera closer to the chair, sitting down in it himself while he watched Daryl physically roll his body up into his hand. He frantically worked his jeans open, grabbing hold of his erection and trying his best to match Daryl's motions without losing sight of the tiny screen.   
  
If you weren't already going to hell, Rick Grimes, you sure as shit are now.   
  
He lost himself in watching and touching and the sounds that Daryl made. The boy was more sinfully tempting than Rick's wildest dreams had given him credit for, and the realization that the hunter had recorded this while playing out his own fantasy with Rick drove the leader positively wild. Daryl not only wanted him; he _thought_ about him. Like _that_.   
  
The leader paused for all of a millisecond to spit in his own palm and then he kept going, pounding one out while he watched the tiny Daryl in the viewfinder stroke his cock and fuck his own hand.   
  
"God, you're gorgeous," Rick said. "Oh, sweetheart, the things I'm gonna do to you."   
  
And seemingly on cue, Daryl moaned his name again. Rick pumped his fist faster, imagining Daryl right there in the room with him, putting on a show that only Rick was allowed to watch.   
  
When he thought his brain was about to short circuit from how damn hot it all was, Daryl landed a killing blow without even knowing he was doing it.   
  
“I'd feed my left nut to a walker to feel you buried in my damn ass,” Daryl growled quietly, so low that Rick reached out with his free hand and groped at the camera to rewind it. Then he listened to it two more times, the hunter's words mingling with the sounds of him frantically rubbing his length. Daryl wanted him inside of him. Daryl wanted Rick to fuck him.   
  
“Want you to fuck me. Want you to damn near destroy me,” Daryl said.   
  
Rick groaned aloud with the words, and with hardly any warning, his body seized up, coiled tight, and released. It was probably a testimony to the carefully honed instincts he had developed in the new world that he managed to cover the tip of his erection with the tail of his shirt before he shot off, collecting his orgasm in the plaid fabric before he made a mess all over the camera and Daryl's fuck-chair.   
  
As soon as his cock stopped twitching, Rick leaned back in his seat, lazily watching while Daryl finished and licked his hand clean of every drop of his cum. If Rick was twenty years younger, that alone would've made his erection spring back to life. But he wasn't, so instead he kept his eyes on the camera, coming down from his high while the tiny Daryl on screen simultaneously came down from his.   
  
When they were both done and the screen had gone back to the main menu, Rick slid himself back into his pants and tucked the cum-soaked bottom of his shirt away out of sight.   
  
It was in that moment that two things became abundantly clear to him.  
  
One, he was going fuck Daryl Dixon. He knew now that the other man wanted him just as badly as he wanted him back, which meant it was only a matter of finding the right place and time to seduce him.   
  
And two, Rick had not even the tiniest prayer when it came to getting the tripod and camera back in the proper place. He knew his hunter well enough to know he wouldn't miss it being off by even an inch.   
  
These two things combined meant that Rick had two options: he could do his best to put the camera back and try to seduce Daryl while being seemingly oblivious to the recording, or he could say fuck it and go for a more no-holds-barred approach.   
  
Knowing the first option was likely doomed to failure, Rick locked away the minuscule amount of fucks he had left to give after a few years in the ZA. Reaching forward, he pointed the camera directly at his face before hitting record.   
  
With a smirk, using the most sultry tone he could muster, Rick recorded about five seconds of video before getting up and leaving the camera right where it was.   
  
“Daryl, I think we should talk.”


	3. Face Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This decided it wants to be four parts instead of three. Rick and Daryl kept wanting to have _feelings_.

By the time Daryl rolled up to the gates of Alexandria a little before sunset, he was covered in blood. Somehow, he had managed to ride his bike back carrying both a backpack and a duffel full of goods. That would have been a feat in itself, but he also had two decent-sized bucks along for the ride, the smaller of which he had pretty much carried back on his shoulders, blood steadily running out of the crossbow wound through its heart and down Daryl's neck and back.   
  
“Well don't you look like hell held you down and took a piss on you,” Abraham said when he opened up the gate. Daryl barely made it inside before he dropped the smaller deer right there on the ground, rolling his shoulders to try and get out some of the kinks.   
  
“If we dry most of it, should buy us a couple more days to find supplies. Found a pretty good-sized stream too. Gonna grab some people and head out tomorrow. See what we can catch. Reckon there's gotta be somethin around here we can use for a net.”   
  
Abraham nodded, waving someone over so they could temporarily watch his post. He handed them the rifle and squatted down to pick the deer up off the pavement. Daryl got back on his bike, walking it up the street toward Olivia's with the ginger beside him.   
  
“Rick was looking for you,” he said.   
  
“What for?” Daryl asked. He had a brief flash of concern. What if Rick had found the camera? He'd been fixated on that thought all day, torn between extreme arousal and extreme fear of the other man never so much as even looking at him again. He really should've at least tried to hide the damn thing. But he hadn't intended to leave it unguarded the way he had. It was just that when he'd found out from Sasha how unsuccessful she and Aaron had been on their run, he had realized that someone had better do something before they got too close to running out of food. So he'd grabbed his bike and headed out without much thought given to anything else.   
  
“Said he wanted to send you out too,” Abraham said. “Think he wanted a little insurance. Don't think he meant for you to go it alone.”   
  
“Guess he got it,” Daryl said, ignoring the other comment. He popped the kick stand of his bike down in Olivia's driveway. She was already inside with the door of her garage open, meticulously inventorying everything they had left, probably preparing to cut rations if the need arose.   
  
“Here,” Daryl said, pulling the duffel strap up over his shoulders to offer it to her. “Ain't much. Lima beans mostly.” The shelf in the looted grocery store had been all but bare save those. Even in the apocalypse, no one wanted the damn things. Go figure.   
  
He took the backpack off next, pulling out a couple of things that he had meant to give to Rick personally, and then he handed that over too.   
  
“Some aspirin. A couple rolls of toilet paper.”   
  
Olivia nodded.   
  
“It all helps. Thanks.”   
  
“Yeah,” Daryl said, looking away from her. He rolled his shoulder and back muscles again now that he was free of the weight of the bags. A few vertebrae popped and he nearly sighed with how good that felt. He might not be the king of taking showers, but he was sure as hell looking forward to a little hot water after being out all day.   
  
“I'll clean the deer too. Just need a tarp and a couple buckets.”   
  
She nodded and got him what he needed. With Abraham's help, Daryl got the job done in half the time, leaving Olivia further instructions on how to cure and dehydrate a good portion of the meat so it would keep.   
  
“Thanks, man,” Daryl said, looking over at Abraham, who now had a pretty decent amount of blood all over him too.   
  
“Been a while,” he said. “Probably best I don't forget how. Just in case.”   
  
“Mm.” Daryl nodded. “Ain't gonna complain. Always hated that part.”   
  
“Me too, brother.” Abraham clapped him on the shoulder once, and the two of them parted ways without needing to say anything else. The redhead walked back toward the gate to take back over his shift, and Daryl headed toward his not-so-secret hideout, deciding he would rather take a nice, hot shower in peace before he reported back to Rick.   
  
He kicked off his boots before he crossed the threshold, knowing that if anyone ever did have to live there, they might not appreciate the mud on his feet, especially since the mud was comprised of about fifty percent deer blood.   
  
Contemplating taking a steaming bath instead of a shower, he propped his new crossbow up inside the door and headed for the stairs, his mind focused on how good the hot water would feel on his aches and pains. He made it about three steps up before he stopped dead in his tracks, slowly backing back down the stairs to make sure he had seen what he thought he had.   
  
The door to the room where he'd left the camera was wide open.   
  
Daryl shook his head. Maybe he only thought he shut it. Maybe he hadn't gotten it latched, and it had come open in the cross breeze from him opening the front door or from the subtle shifts of the house settling around it. Slowly, his stomach knotting a little more with every step, he approached the room and peered around the edge of the door frame. His stomach dropped.   
  
Oh fuck. Oh shit. Oh _no_.   
  
The tripod had moved from where Daryl left it, all the way from the center of the room to directly in front of the chair. His breath quickened in his chest, and no amount of arousal at the thought of Rick watching it could cancel out his panic.   
  
What if it hadn't been Rick at all? And even worse still, what if it had?   
  
He approached the camera slowly, like it was a wild snake that might bite him if he startled it. Trying his best to keep breathing with some semblance of normalcy, he turned the thing on. There was another video recorded after the one he had made. Even in the small thumbnail, he recognized the face.   
  
Fucking hell.   
  
He clicked it, and watched Rick talk, his mind in so much turmoil that he had to view it three times before the words finally registered.   
  
“Daryl, I think we should talk.”   
  
The hunter's first reaction was to have the closest thing to a heart attack he could without actually having a real one. He sank down into the chair, struggling to breathe, gulping in air.   
  
What was he going to do? He thought of the change of clothes he had left upstairs. His backpack was still with Olivia, but there was an old messenger bag shoved into the linen closet downstairs. He had his crossbow with him. If he filled up a few bottles of water, he could make it pretty damn far.   
  
He knew, deep down, that he would likely make his way back, but right then his brain was screaming at him to run, so he did, finding the pack and hastily shoving things into it, including the camera. After that, he moved through the house like a hurricane, grabbing the empty bottles he had left lying around and filling them at the kitchen sink.   
  
Before he knew it, he was at the gate on his bike, staring down Michonne, who had just taken the guard rifle from Abraham and was now demanding to know where he was going.  
  
“Just need out of here. Open it.”   
  
“You've been out all day,” she said. “What you need is to rest. And take a shower.”   
  
Growling, Daryl got up off the bike and headed for the gate himself.   
  
“Daryl.” The low, southern voice stopped him in his tracks. He was acutely aware of Rick's presence behind him, but he couldn't get himself to turn around and look at him. Instead he glanced at Michonne once, and then reached for the gate again. He would claw the damn walls down if he had to.   
  
“Daryl,” Rick said again. This time a hand gently curled over his, tugging it away from the latch. He felt Rick's breath on his ear, his words quiet enough for only him to hear. “I know why you're trying to leave. You don't have to.”   
  
“I...” But Daryl was at a loss for words. What the hell was he supposed to say? _Sorry I jerked it thinking about you. Please don't hate me_?   
  
“C'mon,” Rick said, wrapping an arm around Daryl's chest and tugging him back from the gate. “Let's go have a conversation.”   
  
“I can't,” Daryl said.   
  
“I'm not mad,” Rick said, grabbing the handlebars of the motorcycle and leading it back down the street. Daryl followed behind him in a daze. “I'm not, if that's what you're worried about.”   
  
“Dunno.”   
  
“Where'd you go all day?” Rick asked, changing the subject while he nodded at their family and neighbors.   
  
“Caught some deer,” he said. “Picked up some beans.”   
  
The leader went quiet for a moment, contemplating the hunter's words.   
  
“I'm an idiot,” Rick said. “I knew you did it. I mean I had to know, but I didn't really notice it either.”   
  
“Did what?” Daryl asked.   
  
“You always know what I need. I don't even have to ask you.”   
  
“Didn't do it all for you.” Daryl watched Rick park the bike in the driveway of the not-so-abandoned home and followed him up the front stairs, kicking off his boots again. “Other people I care about here.”   
  
“I know you didn't,” Rick said, reaching around him to lock the front door. “But I wasn't just talking about the run. Come here.” He sat down on the steps leading upstairs and patted a patch of hardwood next to him. Daryl approached cautiously and sat down, taking off the messenger bag and setting it down by his feet.  
  
“Did you…?” Daryl couldn't finish the question, even though he already knew the answer.   
  
“Watch the video? Yes.”   
  
Daryl tilted his head even farther down, determined to never look Rick in the eyes again until the day he died.   
  
“In retrospect, I shouldn't have left it that way,” Rick said. “I should've known you'd react the way you did.”   
  
“It enough to apologize?” Daryl asked. “You forgive me and we forget it ever happened.”   
  
“I guess we can do that,” Rick said. “But I think you should hear my counter offer first.”   
  
“What's that?”   
  
Weathered fingers found the underside of Daryl's chin, forcing him to move his eyes from the ground to Rick's gorgeous blues. He thought the other man just wanted him to look at him, to see the sincerity behind his words. But Rick leaned forward and pressed his lips against his own. The entire universe seemed to explode around them, infinite and incomprehensible. For a fleeting moment, Daryl was pretty sure his heart stopped.   
  
“What the hell?” Daryl pulled away, pressing his back against the wall by the stairs. Rick Grimes just kissed him. Rick Grimes just….   
  
“Don't run again, Daryl. Please.”   
  
Daryl felt the solidness of the wall behind him. He felt like he was a part of it, glued right to the drywall. He couldn't have moved if he wanted to.   
  
“I ain't, but what the _hell?_ ”   
  
“If you want to forget it ever happened, like I said, we can do that.” Rick turned his body a little more, his knee pressing lightly against Daryl's. “But-”   
  
Rick paused, seemingly contemplating what to say next.   
  
“But?” Daryl asked, when the silence became so heavy he thought he would suffocate. Rick shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.   
  
“When I realized it was Deanna's camera, I was hoping you'd done something stupid, something I could tease you about when no one else was around.”   
  
“Guess you got your wish,” Daryl said.   
  
“No, I didn't.” Rick shook his head. “When I realized what it was, I knew I should turn it off, that you wouldn't have wanted me to see it. But then you said my name, Daryl, and I...”   
  
“I'm sorry.”   
  
“That's the thing, Daryl. I don't want you to be sorry.”   
  
“What do you want then?” Daryl asked, trying his best not to think about Rick watching him moaning his name like it was the only word he could remember. Sure, it had been erotic to imagine the other man watching when he didn't think it would ever come true. But this was fucking torture. And he still didn't understand why the fuck Rick had kissed him.   
  
“You.”   
  
“Sorry, what?”   
  
“Daryl, you keep apologizing, but I'm the asshole here. I'm the one who watched the whole tape when I knew you wouldn't want me to. I'm the one who sat in that chair in there and touched myself watching you.”   
  
“Yeah, but I- Wait, you did _what_ now?”   
  
Rick raised one eyebrow and tilted his head, a look that seemed to say, _yep, guilty as charged._    
  
“I wish I could say I wanted you since back at the quarry too,” Rick said, and Daryl was pretty sure if his heart hadn't stopped during the kiss, it was slowing in preparation now. “But it was later for me. Sometime back at the prison is when I finally noticed. I remember taking a shower and thinking about whether or not I should shave my beard. And I remember thinking that you seemed to like it longer so why bother, and then I wondered why the hell I even cared what you thought.”   
  
Daryl didn't respond. Shit, he could hardly formulate thoughts, so trying to string a sentence together seemed hopeless. Finally though, he managed two words.   
  
“I do.”   
  
“Do what?”   
  
“Like it longer.”   
  
“Yeah, I know.” Rick reached up and scratched at the hair on his face. It wasn't mountain man level like it had been at some points out on the road, but it was still a nice mane of gorgeous brown tinged with a hint of gray.   
  
“Felt like a damn crime when we moved in here and you shaved it all off.”   
  
“Yeah, well, we won't talk about how much of an idiot I was right after we moved in here,” Rick said, and Daryl couldn't help but let out a little huff of laughter. Rick had been a huge one, but who was keeping track seeing as he'd fucked himself on camera and just left it sitting around?   
  
“Don't matter no more,” Daryl said. Their first days in Alexandria felt like a lifetime ago. For some people, he supposed they were.   
  
“No, I guess not,” Rick said.   
  
Daryl struggled with what else to say. He had never learn to express feelings and emotions. He did his best to, a nod here, a protective shot from his crossbow there. Carl's favorite candy. An Orgeon license plate.   
  
But a conversation like this. He didn't know what to do. Instead, he dug in his pockets.   
  
“Before I forget,” Daryl said, pulling out the things he'd reserved from his little trip. A single tube of Baby Orajel and a couple of ice blue teething rings. He barely got them into Rick's hand before the other man crushed his lips against his.   
  
Where the kiss before had been tender and reassuring, this one was passionate and chaotic, Rick's gratitude pouring into Daryl's mouth with each swipe of his tongue. The hunter didn't pull away this time, not until Rick did so first, and even then he found himself leaning forward to delay the inevitable.   
  
The former deputy clutched the items in his hand and looked Daryl up and down, appraising him before focusing on the little teething ring grasped in his palm.    
  
“She was yelling her head off when I left her with Carl,” Rick said, looking a little regretful.   
  
Daryl understood instantly. Rick would always be a father before he was anything else, and if he had the means to make his little girl feel better right there between his fingers, then he couldn't put it off.   
  
“Was gonna shower anyway,” Daryl said, giving him an out. “But you never did tell me what exactly your counter offer was. Besides kissin me.”   
  
Rick stood up, tucking the goods into the pockets of his black jeans.   
  
“Thought that was obvious.”   
  
“I ain't good with obvious. Obviously.”   
  
Rick looked at him a moment, glancing back at the front door. Even this small delay was starting to eat away at him, and Daryl loved him all the more for it. He knew all too well that good fathers were hard to come by.   
  
“Tell you what,” Rick said, already backing away from him. “You go shower and meet me where this all started. You'll find out soon enough.”   
  
Daryl watched him turn away, preparing to exit. His heart hammered away in his chest, each thump bouncing off the stony cage surrounding it.   
  
“Oh and Daryl,” Rick said, stopping with the door open.   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Set the camera up.”   
  
He shut the door without another word, leaving Daryl on the stairs to drown in the possibilities.


	4. Record Me Again

Rick was already back by the time Daryl made it downstairs. It was probably his fault. He had showered quickly, frantically even. But he had lingered after, staring at his open bag and the pile of clean clothes inside. There were one and a half outfits and two pairs of underwear inside the pack.   
  
The choice should have been simple as there wasn't much of a choice at all. The problem was that Daryl had a pretty good feeling he was going downstairs to have sex with Rick, which meant that both putting on clothes and not putting on clothes felt silly. He chewed on his lip and thumbed over the worn pair of jeans. Something told him that maybe his hesitation wasn't so much about the clothes as it was the wild thrumming in his chest.   
  
There would be no going back after this. Whether Rick wanted to keep him or not, something about them would be fundamentally different.   
  
Hell, something already was.   
  
Daryl made a decision, and when he was done making it, he grabbed the camera from where it sat nestled between a hand towel and two water bottles. He padded downstairs barefoot, clad in jeans and a shirt that he hadn't bothered buttoning. He left the shoe strings he usually knotted around his ankles off too just in case his pants needed to come off.   
  
Rick waited for him, leaning casually against the door jamb of the intended place of…whatever. He looked just as impossibly handsome as he always did, and Daryl suddenly felt very self-conscious about his attire. He nervously grabbed at the flaps of his shirt, tugging them around his bare chest and stomach.   
  
“I wondered where that was,” Rick said, nodding at the camera. “I was gonna get it ready while I waited.”   
  
Daryl's tongue felt sticky and much too dry. He grasped the flaps of the shirt tighter, holding them shut. Ready for what? he asked. But the words didn't come out of his mouth. He tried again.   
  
“Ready for what?”   
  
“Thought we might make a video,” Rick said. “But if you aren't comfortable, this is enough.”   
  
When you say “this,” what do you mean exactly? Daryl wanted to ask. Instead he held the camera out, relinquishing it to the former deputy, heat starting to pool somewhere within him even while his nerves did laps in it.   
  
Daryl had been on camera in a less than wholesome way many many times. He'd never shown his face, but he'd certainly shown a lot of other parts of himself. Sometimes it was just him working himself with his hand. Sometimes the people watching gave him instructions to turn around. Sometimes they asked him to put fingers in himself. Sometimes other things. He learned early on that anything visible to them was fair game as far as them asking him to use it on himself—beer bottles, a brush handle, an empty plastic pill bottle. Some things, he agreed to. Other things, he declined for safety or because it was, to him at least, physically impossible to somehow fit a deck of cards up his ass. It didn't matter what people asked for or what he agreed to though. It only mattered that someone was there.   
  
In all those times though, all those times that he'd gotten off knowing someone was looking while he wandered through endless depravity, he had never ever contemplated what it would be like to be with another person on screen.   
  
And now he watched Rick screwing the camera back onto the tripod, turning around the room like he was trying to decide which available surface would be the best to point it at. He glanced back at Daryl, and it took him a moment to realize that he was prompting him for an opinion. Daryl looked around the room too.   
  
The pool of heat grew larger, spreading out to his limbs and making his knees feel flimsier than they did even after a few days without enough food and water.   
  
“You're gonna be doin me, right?” he asked, and he had no idea how he had managed to get the words out without faltering. It felt like a stupid question though anyway. There was no part of him that for a second believed Rick wouldn't be on top. Rick was dominant, a leader. Daryl liked him that way. It was a natural fit since he himself was a follower, a deferrer. He liked himself that way too so long as he was following someone worth a damn. Rick Grimes was worth plenty of damns.   
  
Rick seemed to be chewing over his answer, like he was afraid to say the wrong thing but was simultaneously worried the not-wrong thing would still be wrong.   
  
“That's what you said you wanted, isn't it?” he finally answered. “Something about feeding your left nut to the walkers?”   
  
The pooling heat rose to Daryl's cheeks. He tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the tufts of red hot that tightened in his limbs and the way his heart marked the same rhythm as the wheels of a runaway train chugging dangerously along. He walked to each piece of furniture deliberately, the feeling of Rick's eyes on him amplifying everything he already felt.   
  
He was _watching_ him.   
  
“Here,” Daryl managed to choke out, standing at a dusty desk that sliced him across the hips, the perfect height to bend over.   
  
“Perfect,” Rick said. Daryl didn't turn back around. Instead, he stood there at the desk, turned away from Rick while he steeled himself, not because he was doing something he didn't want to do, but because he was doing something he wanted to do so badly that it almost made him feel sick. He waited. His nerves made the seconds longer than they were. Rick's hands pressed softly in his sides.   
  
Something inside Daryl shuddered. His body and breath followed.   
  
“I like this look,” Rick said, snaking a hand around to rub it across Daryl's stomach.   
  
“Redneck lingerie,” Daryl muttered without thinking. The point of contact between his skin and Rick's was on fire, and Daryl couldn't help feeling like he wanted everything else to burn too. Rick ignited his neck with his lips and tongue and teeth.   
  
Daryl let his head roll, opening the flesh around his collar up. Rick licked at the damp skin below his wet hair.   
  
“You've still got blood on you,” he said. Daryl felt him lick his skin again, and he couldn't be sure if he was removing it or continuing on in a different spot. It didn't matter, not really. All that mattered was that Rick had his mouth on him and his hands on him and he could faintly feel what he was pretty sure was an erection pressed against his ass.   
  
“Mm,” Daryl said, a vague noise that landed somewhere between a response and a soft moan. Rick's hands slid down to play with the loose waist band of his jeans, slipping below it easily, fingertips digging into his hips on either side. He tugged Daryl's body hard against his, grinding against his ass. The hunter was definitely certain of that erection now while Rick rutted against him intently.   
  
“I could be happy just doing this,” he said. “Rubbing up against your ass until I cum in my pants.”   
  
Daryl bit his lip. Rick bit his shoulder.   
  
“But that's not what you want, is it?” The former deputy released one of his hand-holds on Daryl's hips and slid his hand down under the elastic of his underwear. Daryl barely had time to brace himself before fingers wrapped around him, sending his mind scattering in a hundred different directions, all of which somehow led back to Rick Grimes. His hips stuttered forward.   
  
“Sorry,” Daryl said automatically. Rick stroked his length expertly. His hips bucked again in the pursuit of delicious friction.   
  
“Don't be,” Rick said. “I want you to want this. To want me.”   
  
Daryl nodded. There was no way in hell that was going to be an issue anytime soon.   
  
“Good.”   
  
Rick kept rubbing, wrapping his other arm around Daryl's waist to hold him firmly in place. He worked him, alternating between delectable strokes that left him panting, and teasing little touches that made him nearly whimper and beg for more. All the while he rutted against him from behind.

Daryl needed more. And less. More of everything and less fabric between them. He didn't know how to say that. He didn't know how to ask.   
  
“There's lube in my pocket,” he blurted out, which he supposed was effective enough. He'd found the tiny bottle a while ago on a run and hidden it away for those times when jerking off just wasn't enough, for those times when he needed fingers or something more. It seemed he'd finally figured out what exactly 'something more' meant.   
  
“That's handy,” Rick said. He made a show of checking every pocket, frisking Daryl with groping hands that somehow made him feel even hungrier than he'd already felt. No, not hungry. He was goddamn _starving_.   
  
“Lean over the desk, and pull your pants down,” Rick said before curling his lips around his ear. “Don't forget to make it pretty for the camera”  
  
The camera. Shit, how had he forgotten? His cock twitched in his jeans, and he did as Rick ordered, bending himself over the wooden surface while the other man took a step back, effectively giving the camera lens a clear shot without losing his own vantage point. Daryl looked at him over his shoulder and gripped his jeans and underwear, working them over his hips and down his thighs to expose everything to the other man.   
  
“I'll take this too.” Rick grabbed at the open shirt, tugging it off the hunter's arms. Daryl felt a brief flash of self-consciousness leap up at the camera filming his scars, but he swallowed it down the second Rick reached for the button of his own jeans.   
  
“Can...” Daryl faltered. Again, he had no idea how to say what he wanted. Instead he reached a hand out for Rick. The other man stepped closer, close enough for Daryl to hook a finger through a belt loop and pull him to the side of the desk. With a little maneuvering and a shift to the right, Daryl got his face to the edge, one cheek pressed against the wood. He remained bent over, his ass and balls still on display for the camera behind them. Two edges of the desk forming a corner. Two hungry holes desperate for Rick's cock forming wanton need.   
  
Rick finished undoing his pants, fishing his erection out for the eager mouth awaiting him. Daryl let him have control, parting his lips so Rick could slide between them. All he wanted was a taste.   
  
“Fuck,” Rick said, reaching down to sweep the hunter's hair out of his face. He pushed deeper, the head of his cock colliding with the back of Daryl's throat, the muscles there contracting around it as the hunter gagged.   
  
“Shit, sorry,” Rick said, pulling back, but Daryl reached out and hooked his arm around his waist, yanking him back in. The hunter gagged again, drool dripping out of the corner of his open mouth and pooling around his cheek on the desk.   
  
“Jesus,” Rick said, the word catching in his mouth, turning two syllables into three. He stilled for a moment, letting Daryl guide his movements, and then he popped open the bottle of lube. Generously coating the fingers of his hand, he leaned over toward the front of the desk and Daryl's bare ass.   
  
“Is this okay?”   
  
“Mhm,” Daryl moaned around his length, lapping at the hardened flesh in his mouth. Wet fingers teased his hole. Rick rolled his hips slowly into Daryl's gaping jaw while he opened him up, coaxing each digit inside as Daryl sucked him dutifully.   
  
“I think you're ready,” he said finally, pulling his cock free of Daryl's little mouth. There was a hint of a question hidden between the words. Or maybe hidden after then. _I think you're ready. Do you disagree?_  
  
Daryl didn't disagree. Instead he moved back to the center of the desk, his cheek streaking drool across its surface. He spread his arms wide and gripped both sides, trying not to wriggle too much while he waited.   
  
Another tiny pop of the lid on the lube, a few filthy slick rubbing sounds from somewhere behind him, and then the glorious feeling of being spread wide open around someone else. Rick filled him slowly like honey trickling into a glass. Daryl savored everything—every drag of the other man's flesh inside of his own, every spasm of his rim around the intrusion, even the slick feeling of lubricant leaking out around his hole. Everything was everything was everything and on and on and on.   
  
“Is this what you wanted, Daryl?” Rick asked when he'd sheathed himself to the hilt.   
  
Daryl wanted to tell him that he had no fucking idea how much he wanted it. He wanted to proclaim yes over and over and over. He wanted to tell Rick that he'd love to stay there with him inside of him forever, wars and walkers be damned.   
  
Instead he said, “mhm.”   
  
It wasn't enough. But words were hard and he was harder.   
  
Rick withdrew and thrust in slowly again. Honey spilled over the sides  of the glass and leaked from Daryl's cock onto the floor. He'd forgotten how good it felt to just be full of someone else. He needed more. He needed it all, whatever all was.   
  
“Please, Rick.”   
  
All was Rick going faster. All was Rick putting everything into every movement, shaking Daryl's body and the desk. Each thrust felt like a single word sentence punctuated with an unmistakable full stop. Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.   
  
Rhythm varied. Fast and slow and fast fast slow.   
  
“I can't wait to watch this,” Rick said filthily. Daryl's cock leaked again at the thought of the camera somewhere behind them whirring away, silently capturing every moment of the encounter. Rick was fucking him and Rick was watching Rick fuck him and Rick was changing angles and pressure was building and Daryl was living and dying all at once.   
  
“Fuck,” Daryl groaned, rolling his hips back into Rick's movements, meeting them in a way that made his vision threaten to blur. He was a lot closer to the end than he was to the beginning. The precipice hurtled closer. All of the heat inside of him turned to lava, the earth around it rumbling and threatening to erupt.   
  
“Daryl, I'm...I...” Rick faltered like he'd forgotten the words he needed to finished the sentence. Maybe he had.   
  
“Me too.”   
  
Rick grasped him firmly, stroking him in a rhythm so accurate that he couldn't tell the difference between what he was feeling inside and what he was feeling out. His body coiled, tighter, tighter, tighter.   
  
“Go on. Splatter it all over the desk for me like a good boy.”   
  
Tighter, tighter. Too tight. Daryl's body snapped, spasming. Inside and out swirled together and forced their way up out of his lungs in a sound that was one part whine, one part moan. His cock twitched in Rick's hand, painting white all over the middle desk drawer. It dripped lazily down the wood.   
  
“Fuck,” Rick groaned through his teeth. He pressed his mouth to the crook of Daryl's neck and groaned loud against the skin there while he released inside. Daryl could feel it leaking out around Rick's cock as he fucked him through his orgasm. The former deputy panted against his skin, catching his breath before pulling out and stepping aside.   
  
The realization that Rick had moved so the camera could record what was about to happen hit him right around the time that he felt the cum trickle out of his ass and drip off his balls. His own cock gave one last weak twitch at the thought.   
  
Rick idly played in the mess, alternating between pushing it back inside of him and making Daryl suck it off his fingers. It tasted better than his own. Next time, he was going to have him shoot off in his mouth.   
  
“You know,” Rick said, when he had finally finished and let Daryl hitch up his pants. He paused to kiss the hunter breathless before continuing. “I bet if I asked for it, Spencer would let me have that camera.”   
  
Daryl could already frame the conversation in his mind. An innocent request. A dad wanting to preserve his daughter's precious moments in a world that preserved nothing. Rick might not even say that's why he wanted it. He wouldn't need to say anything. People often bowed to Rick's will without even realizing they were doing it, and this would be no different.   
  
Daryl walked over to turn it off before they killed the battery. He figured there was just enough left for them to enjoy watching their video together, and then he would hide it back where he found it until Rick got it back for them.   
  
“You know,” Daryl echoed, “I reckon he might.”   
  
Rick smiled at him. The future seemed just a little brighter than it had the day before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come harass me or send me prompts or something on [tumblr](http://www.daryldixongrimes.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://www.daryldixongrimes.tumblr.com)


End file.
